


Seven Vargas

by VelkynKarma



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Explicit Language, Gen, Injury, Kidnapping, PTSD, Season 2 compliant, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, does not adhere to post-s2 reveals, minor OC character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 01:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12807033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelkynKarma/pseuds/VelkynKarma
Summary: Shiro has a bad habit of disappearing unexpectedly. But the team really should have anticipated it this time, with him being the most wanted person on the planet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [buttered_onions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttered_onions/gifts).



> For Blackpaladinweek 2.0: Isolation! 
> 
> I was challenged by butteredonions and gitwrecked for this prompt a while back. This was written prior to the release of s3 and s4, so the circumstances of Shiro's return are different. Hopefully you'll all still have fun with it though :)
> 
> Now featuring gorgeous art by gitwrecked! Check it out below, and check out git's tumblr!  
> https://gitwrecked.tumblr.com/

When Shiro wakes, the first thing he registers is the chill. It feels damp and cool, and makes him clammy and uncomfortable.  
  
The second thing he notices, as his eyes slide open slowly, is that opening his eyes doesn’t make all that much of a difference. It’s not pitch black, wherever he is. But it’s dim and hazy, making it difficult to make out much of anything around him.  
  
He blinks once. Some of the haziness clears, but it doesn’t help much. Wearily, he raises his head, wincing a little at the crick in his neck and the painful twinge when he moves it too quickly.  
  
He realizes he’s sitting upright in a hard metal chair, arms twisted behind its back. The pull at his shoulders and strain on his left arm, and the low throbbing in his right where arm meets metal, make it clear he’s been in this position for some time. He winces, and gingerly tries to pull his arms forward to lessen some of the strain on his shoulders, but he almost immediately finds resistance. He tugs again, to equally useless effect.  
  
His hands are bound behind the chair. He frowns, and his heart thumps faster with the first edges of panic. Why is he bound? Why can’t he remember how he got here? Where is everyone? Has he been captured? Have the _others_ been captured? He glances around sharply, this time ignoring the painful twinge in his neck as he moves it too fast, but he doesn’t see any of the other paladins. He’s not sure if that’s a good sign or not, though. It might mean they’re free, but then again, it could mean something far more sinister. Damn it, why can’t he _remember?_  
  
He scratches uselessly at his own mind, struggling to force himself to remember, but it doesn’t work. And damn it all, he knows he’s had problems with memory, and it’s always been a source of frustration, but at least it’s never happened before with any current memories since his escape. What the hell is happening?  
  
He can feel panic rising in him, hot and erratic in his chest. He grits his teeth against it and squeezes his eyes shut, concentrating hard. _No. Stop. You can’t afford to panic now. Calm. Down. Focus, Shirogane. It’s the only way you’re getting out of whatever happened here._  
  
It takes him longer than he’d like, but he manages to force down the writhing mass of panic with careful, measured breaths. When he trusts himself to maybe try and think clearly, he cracks his eyes open again slowly, and forces himself to take in the details.  
  
It’s still difficult to see in the gloom, but his eyes are starting to adjust now. The room he’s in is small, dark and cramped, with no windows. There are some scattered crates here and there, and combined with the moldy smell and the chill and damp, he wonders if he’s in some kind of dilapidated storage unit or warehouse. There’s a door on the far wall, partially open. It looks like his only means of escape, if he can manage to get over to it.  
  
He tests his bindings again, this time more carefully, exploring as best as he can with his left hand behind his back. It feels like his arms are bound together with metal cuffs, strong enough to withstand the strength of the Galra prosthetic. The cuffs feel like they’re hooked to the chair back as well, to prevent him from going anywhere. An experimental kick with his feet suggests his ankles are also bound—just enough to give him the ability to shuffle, but not enough to really run, or even walk. Whoever did this, they didn’t want him getting away any time soon.  
  
Unfortunately for them, they’d underestimated Shiro. If he’d been a regular human this might have held him successfully, but he’s a human _literally_ armed with a high-tech piece of Galra weaponry—and for all its many flaws, his prosthetic is _very_ good at wrecking things. The cuffs should be no exception—and even if they are, he can break the chair to free himself just as easily.  
  
He concentrates, clenching his metal hand into a fist as he activates its glowing white-hot power, and—  
  
And he _screams._  
  
The moment he lights up his arm, all he can feel is _pain_. It’s like a bolt of red-hot lightning slams straight into his brain, and his whole body is on fire, burning enough to set his skin bubbling and muscle sloughing off the bone and god it _hurts_ down to the deepest core of his being. Blinding white spots crackle in front of his eyes, lighting up the gloom, like spotlights in his face—like the spotlights in the arena and he can feel the agony of his opponents snapping bones and digging nails deep into his flesh—nails like Haggar’s and he can feel the drag of her claws as it pulls against his skin when he’s trapped against the table and his arms won’t move and the lights burn in his eyes and he hurts hurt _hurts_ —  
  
So far away, beneath his own screaming, he hears a low hum and crackle, and suddenly the pain stops as abruptly as it came. Shiro gasps and slumps weakly in his seat, and only then does he even realize that his body had been arched and twisted painfully in response to that sensation of pure agony. The pain itself is completely gone, but even so his body trembles at the memory of it, and he pants like he’s run a marathon. What had that been? Where is he? The testing rooms? The arena? He doesn’t remember where he is or how he got here. He doesn’t remember anything, his mind blank and hazy.  
  
“Don’t be trying that again,” a voice snaps, from directly in front of him.  
  
Shiro jerks his head up in surprise, and twitches back involuntarily when he meets a pair of eyes only two feet or so from his face. There’s an alien standing in front of him—short and squat, with a wide face and mouth, bulgy green eyes, and slimy-looking skin that altogether puts him in mind of a toad of some kind. Shiro doesn’t remember seeing the alien move in front of him though, and he’s not sure how they even got in here to begin with, and that’s alarming enough to send his heart pounding again.  
  
“You hear me?” the alien says, snappish. “Don’t be trying to use that fancy arm’ve yours again. The harder you fight back, the more painful the suppressor’s gonna get, got it? We ain’t takin’ chances with a thirty million gac bounty. So just sit pretty, keep quiet, and let us deal with you.”  
  
Shiro blinks at him in confusion. HIs mind still feels hazy and disoriented, even more so from the memory of that fresh agony, but slowly he’s starting to recover his wits. He can smell mold and sees the crates and dark, cramped space behind the alien, and remembers all over again the conclusion he’d come to before. _Not the arena. Not one of Haggar’s experiments. Captured, somehow._  
  
This must be one of his captors, then. And they’ve found a way to keep him from using the abilities in his prosthetic—one that causes unimaginable pain. He knows better than to try lighting up again, not before he figures out more about this ‘suppressor’ at any rate. He’s tempted to try and feel for it now, see if maybe it’s something attached to arm itself that he can work free, but the toad-alien is still glaring at him. Better not try it just yet.  
  
But there’s something else in the alien’s words that catches his attention, and after a moment Shiro says slowly, “Bounty?” He nearly winces at how hoarse his voice sounds and how raw his throat feels. He’d been screaming harder than he even realized.  
  
There’s a snort from behind him, and a moment later another alien circles around from the back of the chair to stand next to the toad-alien. Everything about this one seems long, elongated, and brittle, like a giant walking twig. “Listen to this idiot. He think we’re stupid?”  
  
Shiro frowns in confusion. “I don’t…you’re mistaken. I don’t have a bounty. Now let me go.” _Let me go and get this suppressor off me so I can teach you a lesson about kidnapping._  
  
The twig-alien frowns…Shiro thinks, anyway. It’s hard to be sure. “You can’t be serious. You really think we’re gonna fall for something as stupid as that? We’re professionals, y’know?”  
  
“Hey, Jezrik…we _do_ got the right guy, right?” the toad-alien adds, scowling over Shiro’s shoulder.  
  
“It’s the right one.” There’s heavy steps from behind Shiro—he’s starting to wonder if the room is a lot bigger behind him. A massive alien thumps around him a moment later, and Shiro stares up and up and _up_ at the new arrival. Jezrik’s head brushes the ceiling, and he’s built like an upright rhinoceros, with the same thick-looking skin, muscled arms and legs, and even several horns sprouting from his face. Something about him looks vaguely familiar, although Shiro can’t quite place it. He wonders if maybe he’d fought someone from this race before in the arena.  
  
Jezrik taps on what looks like a mounted wrist computer with thick, stubby fingers, and a small holo-screen lights up over his arm. Shiro stares in surprise at his own face in the image. His photographic self looks off to one side, and he’s still wearing the Galra prison uniform. The photo must have been taken late in his imprisonment, because the holographic version of himself is sporting his white fringe of hair and the scar across his nose. There’s text beneath the image, all in characters Shiro has seen enough to recognize as Galran but can’t actually read.  
  
He doesn’t need to read it to know they’re telling the truth, though. There really _is_ a bounty out for him, somehow. A bounty set by the Galra, if the text is anything to go by. He’s not sure if it has to do with him being an escaped prisoner, or being the black paladin, but he supposes it all adds up to the same thing in the end.  
  
“Yeah,” the toad-alien agrees after a moment, glancing between the image and Shiro’s face. “That’s definitely him.”  
  
“Can’t believe he didn’t know he had a bounty,” Shiro hears a fourth voice over his shoulder. It sounds like it’s snickering, although the speaker never comes into his view. “How stupid do you gotta be! Easiest score ever.”  
  
“Congratulations, Champ,” Jezrik adds, sneering down at Shiro from his massive height. “You’ve got a bounty. And you’re gonna make us filthy rich.”  
  
Shiro glares. He wants to snap back at him, argue, fight _somehow_ , but meeting Jezrik’s eyes and seeing his face head-on for the first time, he’s struck again by the familiarity of that stare. It’s intense and predatory, and Shiro _knows_ now that he’s seen it somewhere before, he _remembers_ it from somewhere, somewhere recent, if he could just—  
  
_The market stall!_  
  
The memory comes back to him quickly, surging forward from the recesses of his foggy brain. It’s not from too long ago, he realizes; earlier that very same day even, he’s reasonably sure.  
  
_He walks with the other paladins in the middle of the city of Solennar, down in the market district. The city is modernized and reminds Shiro vaguely of any number of human cities back on Earth, but there’s some sort of festival going on in the open central circle of the city, and everyone who’s anyone is there. People are everywhere—not just the native Lacasans, but dozens of species from other planets. Everyone is milling through the festival stalls for goods, or buying foods from the speciality vendors._  
  
_The rest of the paladins had been excited at the prospect of visiting, and Shiro has a hard time keeping them all on track, although he can hardly blame them. They’re here on business—to meet with a few of Coran’s old contacts and see if they can’t restart a resistance here on Lacas. The planet has been under Galra rule for nearly a thousand years, to the point that they’ve become so used to Galra rule it’s just normal. There’s only the weakest of token Galra forces for security on the other side of the planet, and based on the intel they’ve gathered so far, those soldiers have become complacent from a lack of any activity. That makes it easy enough for them to wander through the crowds unhindered, at least, and they’re wearing their civilian clothes to avoid drawing further attention to themselves. The Galra likely won’t realize they’re here until Voltron takes the fight to them._  
  
_But even with business at hand, it’s hard to resist the urge to party, and enjoy the cultural sights and sounds. Lance is practically chomping at the bit to look at everything and hit on nearly every woman he sees, and Hunk eyes all the culinary stalls with curiosity. Even Pidge and Keith seem intrigued by the sights and smells around them._  
  
_Shiro would find it interesting too—some of the things he’s seen remind him a little of some of the festivals in Japan, and it leaves him a little homesick. But something about this place makes him feel uneasy. It takes him a while to figure out why the hairs on the back of his neck are raising, or why he feels so unexpectedly anxious, but eventually he figures it out when he accidentally meets the eyes of a festival goer that immediately looks away from him._  
  
_That’s it, he realizes. He feels like he’s being_ watched.  
  
_It’s a bit stupid, really. They’re in the middle of a massive crowd of people; of course people are going to see him. He can’t expect to be completely invisible—in fact they’re using the crowd to hide in plain sight as they move from contact to contact. Getting upset because people look at him is a little ridiculous._  
  
_Except that sometimes he feels like those glances are more than just glances. They’re stares, and they feel a little more…intense than is probably normal. He pretends he doesn’t notice, but he does mark the way certain people eye him for far too long, like they’re trying to memorize every detail of his face. And sometimes he’s sure he catches them staring at his arm as well, the Galra one, like they’re taking note of it too._  
  
_He’s just being paranoid, he tells himself. Too many battles in the arena and a year of being a prisoner have gone to his head, even if he can’t remember half the details. The instincts are still there, he’s sure. He’s just being ridiculous. Of course people are going to stare at his arm—even if cyborg prosthetics are more common out here in space than they would be on Earth, they’re still not_ that common, _especially not one as advanced as his. He’d probably stare, too. And humans aren’t that common out in space, for obvious reasons. They’re probably just not used to seeing one, and maybe his white fringe or scar is confusing them._  
  
_He tries to ignore the fact that nobody seems to stare quite as hard at the rest of the paladins as him. He’s just overthinking it. He’s being paranoid. It’s stupid. He’s seeing dangers where there aren’t any._  
  
_He feels eyes on himself again and, forcing himself to face his own paranoia, turns his head to meet the watcher head on. The alien is tall, towering over most of the others in the crowd, with thick-looking rough skin and horns protruding from over and between his eyes. He meets Shiro’s gaze directly and stares for a moment, and that look is intense, enough that Shiro’s sure he can’t be imagining anything. But then the alien blinks and turns away, returning to a conversation with one of the festival stall owners, and Shiro frowns to himself._  
  
See, _he thinks_ , you’re just imagining things. He just looked at you. That’s it. There’s nothing strange going on here. There’s no problem. No one else is worried over this. Stop over-reacting. Enough.  
  
_But all the same, he can’t help but shake the feeling that something is coming, and it makes him uneasy._  
  
Shiro’s eyes widen when it all comes back to him. He remembers now, most of it at any rate. How he’d felt that edge of paranoia all day, well after they’d met with the potential resistance contacts and returned to the rooms they’d taken in the city proper. How he’d been uneasy in the rooms, how he’d felt like they were sitting ducks. How he’d been almost positive _something_ could attack, how he’d finally decided to give into his (irrational, frustrating, ridiculous) over-reacting and do a quick patrol outside their hotel. Just to be sure nothing and no one was watching, or lying in wait. Just to make sure they were still safe where they were.  
  
He remembers Keith coming out to speak to him, following after with that concerned look on his face that said he’d picked up on more of Shiro’s mood than Shiro had intended to let on. He remembers being irritated with himself for that—he’d been so sure he’d concealed his unease enough to not worry the others, but apparently he’d failed in that regard.  
  
He remembers the attack coming out of nowhere. The fighting in the dark, caught by surprise.  
  
The way they’d taken Keith and put a blade to his throat, threatened to kill him if Shiro didn’t comply.  
  
“Where’s Keith?” Shiro snarls, all else forgotten as he glares up at Jezrik.  
  
“Keith?” Another voice asks behind him. It’s a fifth—there are at least five different people involved in this kidnapping—but Shiro recognizes that voice. It’s the same one that threatened to slit Keith’s throat if he didn’t stop fighting.  
  
Shiro twists in his seat, trying to glare over his shoulder so he can see Keith’s attacker. “The one you threatened. I did what you asked—now where is he? If you killed him—“  
  
Jezrik reaches out and forcibly drags Shiro’s chair around to face him, then clamps thick fingers over the top of Shiro’s skull, forcing him to look up at his captor. “You can’t do shit to us, even if we did,” the bounty hunter says with a sneer. “But you can calm your ass down. Like Cri’irik said, we’re professionals. We don’t bother with worthless heads. We’ve got a legitimate business. Your _Keith’s_ alive, now quit squirming or I’ll make you.”  
  
Shiro glares at Jezrik, but the bounty hunter’s hand on his skull squeezes tight enough to give him a nasty headache, and he knows better than to fight back at the moment. _Patience yields focus._ He just has to wait for the right moment. He’s not entirely sure if they’re being truthful or not, but even if Keith _is_ here with him somewhere, he can’t do the red paladin any good if he gets himself injured badly arguing.  
  
This is a waiting game, and he knows he’s done it before. He doesn’t remember much, but he remembers enough from his imprisonment with the Galra to know the truth of it. He just needs to wait for the right opportunity. He takes a few silent, shallow breaths as unobtrusively as possible, and does what he can to calm.  
  
“That’s better,” Jezrik growls. “Behave and this won’t be any worse for you than it has to be. Least, while you’re with us.” He sneers and releases Shiro’s head, with enough force to give him whiplash. “They might have a different say of it in the arena, but that’s for the Champion to decide, yeah?”  
  
Shiro clamps his teeth together to keep from snapping something he might regret, and instead glances around. He knows there’s five captors now, at least; he’s heard all their voices. It seems clear based on everyone’s actions that Jezrik is the ringleader. The toad and twig aliens swarm past him after Jezrik as the latter turns back into the room, and thanks to Jezrik’s manhandling of his chair, Shiro now has a better view of the rest of the place. The room is much bigger on the other side, but still full of broken and decaying crates, and it still reeks of mold just as strongly from that direction. He doesn’t see Keith at all, or any of the others. Shiro’s captors had probably just shoved him in the corner by himself until he woke up.  
  
He also gets a good view of the last two kidnappers, lounging around on a few old looking chairs. One has blue skin and a squarish face, but otherwise appears fairly humanoid. The second appears to be one of those unilu Coran had shown them before the rest of the team had gone to the space mall. From the way the unilu twirls his dagger in one of his hands, Shiro has no doubt this is the one that had threatened Keith’s life.  
  
“Get the communicator ready,” Jezrik orders. The others jump up and set to work, pulling out bits and pieces of technology from some of the crates. As they scurry, Shiro recalls more of his memories of the festival—watching people rushing around him, or that strange sensation of being watched.  
  
_They were the ones watching me,_ he realizes. _I really was being watched. If I had a bounty out…damn, they must have identified me almost right away. Probably the only thing stopping them were the crowds, and the fact that I was in a group with the rest of the team._  
  
It’s frustrating to think they’d been in so much danger the whole time and he’d disregarded it. At the same time, it’s almost a relief to know he hadn’t been going crazy and imagining things. Next time he’ll have to trust his instincts.  
  
Assuming there is a next time, anyway.  
  
_No time like the present to work on that,_ Shiro decides. He needs to break these cuffs to give himself a fighting chance, but he’s not sure how much leeway he has dealing with this…suppressor they talked about. He needs to figure out what it is, and get it off first, if he has any chance of getting out of this in one piece.  
  
So while they’re distracted with setting up their equipment, he starts using his left hand to feel carefully along the prosthetic. It’s not easy to maneuver his left hand, but these cuffs are more like the energy-chain bindings Coran had used on them than the solid cuffs Sendak had used—not a lot of give, but at least a little room to move.  
  
It’s partway up his prosthetic, just past the cuff at the wrist, that he finds the obstruction. It feels a bit like a bracelet, but it’s immobile and rigid around the underside of the arm. Careful exploration with his thumb reveals there’s a piece of the bracelet-thing actually slotted through the panelling on the forearm, and presumably buried in the inner workings inside. It doesn’t seem like something he’ll be able to dislodge easily, or even at all, and he’s afraid to try breaking it off. What if it triggers the pain response? He swallows at even the memory of that blinding, infinite agony.  
  
He tries exploring the cuffs next, to see if there’s some kind of trigger he can activate to free himself. If he can at least get his arms and legs loose, he might have a fighting chance. If nothing else, the Galra arm makes an excellent bludgeon.  
  
But he can’t find any sort of release, and he barely has a dobosh to play with it before Jezrik growls, “Alright. Connect.”  
  
Shiro freezes as one of the hunters, the blue-skinned one, drifts over in his direction. He waits, and watches.  
  
It doesn’t take long for the tech they’ve set up to light up, and a moment later a holographic screen appears in midair. There’s a Galra soldier watching them, wearing the darker armor of an officer and an intensely disinterested and arrogant expression. “This is Commander Ketak,” the Galra snaps. “I trust you know what this line is for, and you had better not be wasting my time.”  
  
“Not at all, Commander,” Jezrik says, crossing his arms. “This is the contact info I have for reporting on the bounty on Champion. Thirty million gac for a full capture. Well, we’ve got’im.”  
  
“I see,” Ketak replies, in a tone that says he doesn’t believe the declaration for a second. “And your proof?”  
  
In answer, the blue-skinned hunter seizes Shiro’s chair and drags him over fully in front of the holo screen. Shiro scowls as he’s forcibly dragged along, detesting how utterly helpless he is to prevent even that. He deliberately refuses to look at the screen in the smallest token of resistance he can muster. The hunters don’t let him get away with it, and the unilu hunter twists his head forward so his face is fully visible. Shiro’s eyes meet the Galra officer’s. He glares furiously, unable to do anything else.  
  
Ketak’s brows go up slightly in surprise. “I see,” he repeats, but now with more obvious interest. “A full capture indeed. The arm is still intact?”  
  
In answer, the twig hunter unhooks Shiro’s cuffs from the chair, and Jezrik hauls him up like he’s a rag doll. Shiro stumbles awkwardly in the tangle of the energy chains at his ankles, but Jezrik keeps him firmly upright, thick fingers wrapped around Shiro’s left arm. He’s twisted to display the metal arm, still cuffed firmly behind himself. Shiro hates feeling like some kind of animal on display.  
  
“Excellent,” Ketak nearly purrs. Jezrik deposits Shiro back in his chair, and the twig hunter reattaches his cuffs to the chair back. “Your location, then.”  
  
“Hold up. We got a guarantee on the thirty million, yeah?” Jezrik asks, voice guarded.  
  
“Naturally. The Galra Empire always rewards its dedicated citizens,” Ketak drawls. “The amount will not be provided until the prisoner is safely within our custody, however. So. Your location?”  
  
“Lacas,” Jezrik answers. “There’s an outpost on the other side of the planet—we can deliver him there and they can wire us the gac—“  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ketak snaps. “They wouldn’t be able to hold one such as Champion. No, I will retrieve him personally.”  
  
Shiro doesn’t miss the greedy look in Ketak’s eyes when the Galra speaks. His words sound convincing enough, but Ketak doesn’t care one whit about the token force on the planet being able to handle him as a prisoner. He imagines the Galra responsible for handing over Shiro to Haggar herself will get more glory and honor in the empire than any gac could buy. It’s all too clear to Shiro that he’s rapidly become the center of a massive power play in the empire.  
  
“Coordinates are being provided to you now,” Ketak continues. “We will arrive in approximately seven vargas. Have the prisoner ready for transport, and do not be late. Follow these orders, and you will receive your reward.”  
  
The screen blinks out, and the hunters look around at each other. The toad-like one pokes at one piece of equipment and gestures to the others. “Pickup’s at the Hollian plaza. Seven vargas on the dot.”  
  
“Then we’re all set,” Jezrik says, smirking again. “Now we just gotta wait until go time.”  
  
They look pleased with themselves. Shiro can’t believe any of them are actually this stupid…but maybe he can use that. He glances around at all of them, and says bluntly, “You can’t honestly believe him.”  
  
They all glance over at him. The twig hunter snorts, and the unilu rolls his eyes. Jezrik snaps, “Nobody asked you, Champ. Shut up and wait to get cashed in.”  
  
“For _what?”_ Shiro says. “You’re making a big mistake. They aren’t going to be as easy to deal with as you think.” The greed in Ketak’s eyes was enough to tell him that. That Galra isn’t going to let his one-way ticket to an excellent standing in the empire be hampered by five bounty hunters with their eyes on a little cash. “And if you think they’re actually going to give you that thirty million gac, you’re crazier than you look.”  
  
For such a large guy, Jezrik moves shockingly fast. His massive fist smashes Shiro in the side of his face, and Shiro sees stars as his whole body snaps sideways. The chair teeters alarmingly, and for a moment Shiro is breathless.  
  
“Getting tired of hearing your voice, you mouthy little shit,” Jezrik snarls. Shiro’s barely regained his vision when the largest hunter backhands him again, sending his head snapping the other way. Shiro can taste blood in his mouth. “You may be some big badass in the arena, but you can’t do shit right now, you hear me? So shut the hell up!”  
  
He raises his hand for a third strike, and Shiro tries to brace for impact—although it’s difficult when his head is still spinning. It’s hard to concentrate when Jezrik’s fists are like sledgehammer blows. There’s rage in the hunter’s eyes, but before he can strike again, the toad hunter leaps forward.  
  
“Quiznak, Jezrik, calm down! He ain’t _worth_ anything if ya wreck his face up, they need that for ID. We need him to be in one piece and _alive_ for the full bounty.”  
  
“He’s just trying to talk his way out’ve getting sold off,” the unilu adds tersely. “Don’t let him mess with your head, boss.”  
  
Jezrik takes a deep breath, and after a moment lowers his massive hand. “You’re right. Not worth losing the thirty mil over this smart-ass.” He glares down at Shiro again. “But you’d better keep your damn mouth shut. Or we’ll knock you out. Don’t have to deliver you _conscious_. Just _alive_.”  
  
Shiro does his best to keep from reacting outwardly, and glares back at Jezrik…or, well, one of the Jezriks, anyway. Shiro’s vision is still swimming a little from those blows. He must do a decent enough job of it at least, because Jezrik snorts through his nose and turns away, stomping off down to the other end of the room.  
  
It’s only when the largest of the hunters is a decent distance from him that Shiro feels the vaguest sense of relief. He’d seen pure, unbridled rage in Jezrik’s eyes. He remembers enough of his arena fights to have seen the same look in the eyes of some of his opponents. Jezrik claimed he was a professional, but Shiro’s gut instinct told him that he’d narrowly avoided being murdered in cold blood, and only because the other hunters had spoken up at all. If it had just been Jezrik…  
  
Shiro coughs, and blood spatters in his lap from his mouth. Nothing serious—split lips and a bitten tongue from Jezrik’s thrashing. But it tastes nasty all the same, and his face is already starting to ache.  
  
_You’ve had worse, Shirogane,_ he tells himself. _The Gladiator’s given you a worse beating in training back on the Castle. There’s more important things to deal with._  
  
Like his time limit. Seven vargas. He has seven vargas to somehow engineer an escape, or find some way to be rescued. If he can’t do that, he’ll be in Galra claws again, and after that his chances of survival drop rapidly. But until then, it sounds like his head is worth more attached than not, and he needs to use that to his advantage.  
  
_You’ve broken out of worse. You escaped the gladiator arena and the Galra Empire, for fuck’s sake. And this time you’ve got people on the outside who are sure to be looking for you. You can do this._  
  
Seven vargas.  
  
Time to see what he can do.

 

* * *

  
  
_“Nothing,”_ Pidge hisses in frustration, typing rapidly on her computer. “No notices about kidnappings. Nothing on slave trade. I can’t find any hint of movement from that outpost on the other side of the planet. There’s not even any security cameras for me to hack into!” She throws up her hands in frustration, and then digs her fingers into her hair. “Why can’t I find Shiro?”  
  
“He has to be _somewhere,_ ” Keith says. Speaking irritates the nasty bruise on the right side of his face, based on the way he winces, but keeps going anyway. “There has to be _something._ He can’t have just vanished.” He seems just as frustrated as Pidge, but there’s an edge of fury in his eyes, and a little of guilt, as well. “Damn it, if I’d just been paying better attention…”  
  
“Beating yourself up over it isn’t helping anybody, least of all Shiro,” Pidge says, a little more snappishly than intended. She can’t really help it, though. Shiro’s been missing for at least two vargas now, and whoever’s taken him has way too much of a head start.  
  
All they’ve got to go on is Keith’s blurry recollection of an ambush attack in the dark, and of being held hostage at knifepoint until Shiro agreed to surrender and was knocked out. Their assailants had knocked Keith out shortly after, and the next thing he remembered was waking up in a trash heap in a back alley, and the attackers—and Shiro—had vanished.  
  
Keith’s done his best to help, but Coran reports a rather nasty bump on the head that almost certainly means a concussion, and Keith’s memory of the incident currently has quite a few holes in it. Not uncommon with head injuries, but certainly frustrating. Keith can’t seem to remember the faces of the attackers, although he swears he’ll recognize at least the species if he sees them. But he’s frustrated at his uselessness, or the fact that Allura and Coran both have expressly forbidden him from hitting the streets to search for Shiro. It’s only the fact that he’s still a little wobbly on his feet when he walks that has kept him from leaving on his own despite the order, probably.  
  
Pidge knows he feels useless, and Keith _hates_ feeling useless, but quite frankly she doesn’t have time to deal with his wallowing. They’ve got a leader to save.  
  
“We just need somewhere to _start_ ,” Pidge hisses in frustration. “If we even had a lead, or something—“  
  
“I’ve got your lead right here,” Lance says, as he bangs the door to their hotel suite open, Hunk on his heels. They both look distinctly unhappy and tense, and Pidge feels the first cold spike of dread in her stomach at the sight of their expressions. The mood carries. Coran looks up from where he’s preparing a compress for Keith’s bruised face, and Allura hastily excuses herself from a holo-screen conversation with one of the contacts they’d been trying to see, shutting the call down to give Lance and Hunk her full attention.  
  
Lance hands Pidge a small device that he pulls from his jacket pocket without any preamble or showmanship. “See if you can translate it,” he says, looking particularly grim, “but you’ll get the idea just from seeing it.”  
  
Pidge frowns, but slots the device into a port on her laptop as everyone else gathers around behind her. A moment later an image pops up on her screen, and her eyes widen at the sight. Keith hisses through his teeth, and Allura emits a strangled sounding, _“What?”_  
  
It’s a wanted poster. There’s no doubt about that. Pidge hasn’t decrypted it yet, but the appearance is universal enough. Worse, the photo is _Shiro’s_ , still wearing that awful Galra prison uniform, with that all too familiar scar and white fringe of hair.

  
  
“We figured we’d check out the authorities first,” Hunk says, as Pidge keys up her translation program. “Y’know, see if the local police force could give us any hints on kidnappings or anything. We didn’t even get a chance to ask about Shiro—which was probably a good thing. These wanted posters were all over the place in their building. Shiro’s was in the middle of a bunch of others. We recognized him right away.”  
  
“I managed to get one of the officers talking,” Lance adds. “Y’know, once we saw the poster. Made out like we were bounty hunters looking for information on any leads or anything, kinda moved it towards Shiro. The officer told us to leave ‘Champion’ way the hell alone, said we weren’t experienced enough to deal with a ‘monster’ like that yet.”  
  
He pitches his voice lower, clearly imitating the local authorities. “ ‘Champion’s dangerous, a known war criminal and psychopath from the gladiator rings. He’ll kill you as soon as look at you, newbie. If you got any info on him, hand it over to the authorities right away—don’t go after him yourself. We don’t want to be putting you in body bags over your first hunt.’ “  
  
“Shiro would never do something like that!” Keith snaps, bristling.  
  
“You think we don’t know that?” Lance shoots back, throwing his hands up in the air. “Of course Shiro’s not a freakin’ _serial killer,_ but that’s not how the Galra made it out! The officer said it’s been an active bounty for months, nobody’s caught him yet. But it’s a bounty put out by the highest office in the Galra Empire. Direct from Zarkon himself, basically. So it’s big news, and still worth something even with Zarkon defeated.”  
  
“Which the Empire has been keeping pretty hush-hush,” Hunk adds, “So that’s hardly surprising…”  
  
Pidge can hear them shifting uneasily around her as she taps furiously on her keyboard. She can’t blame any of them. This is big stuff, and the Galra were obviously taking no chances at losing one of their most prized prisoners. From what they’ve been able to piece together from the memories Shiro’s shared, he’d have been a very important prisoner just as ‘Champion,’ and Haggar’s personal guinea pig for all manner of experimentation. But add that to Shiro being the black paladin now, and…well, it was no surprise the Galra wanted to get their hands on him, and badly.  
  
She’s just furious that for all her data-mining and hacking, she’s never picked up on anything like this wanted poster until this moment…when it was too late to do anything about it.  
  
“Still, if they’ve painted an image of Shiro being this…bloodthirsty killing machine,” Allura observes with a frown, “then that does beg the question why anyone would try to capture him. If he’s as deadly as the rumors supposedly claim, only a great fool would try to take him like this.”  
  
The computer beeps as the translation program completes. A new image of the wanted poster super-imposes itself over the first, with several sub-text lines in both English and Altean. Everyone goes silent as they stare at the poster and read through its contents, and Pidge feels her heart drop into her stomach as she takes in all the details.  
  
“A great fool, or a very greedy one,” Coran remarks solemnly, after a long moment.  
  
“No kidding,” Pidge agrees grimly, as she rereads everything again. The poster doesn’t change. It still reads:  
  
_WANTED: ALIVE_  
_“CHAMPION”_  
_Approximately six feet tall, pale skin, right arm is advanced cybernetic Galra technology_  
_Skilled combatant, EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, 25+ arena kills, to be considered armed and deadly at all times_  
_Reputable sighting with evidence: 5 million gac_  
_Intelligence leading to successful capture: 10 million gac_  
_Full capture and turn-in: 30 million gac, awarded when prisoner is in custody_  
_MUST BE TAKEN ALIVE. MUST NOT BE EXTENSIVELY DAMAGED. PROSTHETIC MUST STILL BE INTACT. FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN EXTREME FORCE._  
  
“Thirty million gac,” Lance says incredulously. “That’s…that’s a lot of Mercury Gameflux II’s….”  
  
“They want him back bad,” Hunk says, worried. “And these guys that took him…I mean, thirty million. I’m not sure how much that is in Earth currency but it sounds like enough to keep you set for life, even splitting it up. No wonder they’d risk it.”  
  
“They’re going to regret it, when we find them,” Keith promises. There’s a definite threat of violence in his tone, but nobody disagrees.  
  
Pidge stares at the photograph of Shiro on the poster for a long moment, and then abruptly says, “I’ve been looking in all the wrong places.”  
  
“Come again?” Lance asks, frowning.  
  
“I’ve been looking in all the wrong places,” Pidge repeats, bringing up a new screen on her computer. “Kidnappings, disappearances, people trafficking…all ways people could vanish, but they’re all shady. This place is under Galra sanction. If even the police have wanted posters up for Shiro, that’s not considered shady, that’s a legal warrant.” She can feel herself getting more excited now that she has something new to work with. “I can start digging into official records instead, read up on sightings, hunter inquiries, hack the office…”  
  
“Okay, we’re gonna let you do what you do best, then,” Hunk says. Pidge barely hears him; she’s already falling into the zone. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help. More fieldwork or research or…or food? How about food. Nobody’s eaten since Shiro went missing, and we gotta keep up our strength so we can rescue him when we find him.”  
  
_When_ we find him. Good old Hunk, believing the best in everyone.  
  
“Good idea,” Coran agrees. “I’ll finish tending to Keith to make sure he’s fighting fit as well for the old sothian charge.” Keith scowls a little, clearly wanting to do something more active to help, but allows himself to be maneuvered back into a sit off of his bad leg so that Coran can apply the compress.  
  
“I’ll see if any of our contacts in the resistances will be able to help,” Allura adds, looking fiercely determined. “Let me know if there’s another way I can assist.”  
  
Pidge nods absently, tuning them all out as she falls farther into the data. She has a lead now, even the tiniest one, and she doesn’t intend to let it go.  
  
_Hang in there, Shiro,_ she thinks. _Hang in there. We’re coming. Just hold on a little longer.  
_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Blackpaladinweek day 6: Choice!   
> Shiro makes some difficult decisions while trying to escape that may or may not come back to bite.

“I think we got a problem, Jezrik. They’re getting closer.”   
  
Shiro stops focusing on his cuffs long enough to eye the speaker warily. It’s the toad-like hunter, hunched on the far side of the room over some of the bounty hunting team’s equipment, staring at a few screens. Shiro can’t see what’s on them—the screens aren’t holographic and he’s not close enough to make out the details. But for a moment he’s hopeful. _They’re getting closer_ …maybe it’s the paladins, searching for him?  
  
But his hopes are dashed a moment later when the toad-like hunter adds, “Look. It’s those Semarine hunters, that team from the other side of the city. Fifth time they’ve circled through this block, and every time they keep getting closer. I think they know we’re here, Jezrik.”  
  
“Not possible.” Jezrik heaves himself to his feet and strides over to stare down at the controls. “This is one of our best safe-houses! No one should know we’re here. It’s off the grid and everything.”  
  
“Thirty million gac makes people search more places than just on the grid, I’m guessing,” the unilu hunter says dryly, as he casually sharpens the blade of his dagger. “Quiznak, I’d comb the streets building by building for a bounty like this if I had to.”   
  
Shiro feels his heart sink a little. This isn’t just something isolated to this one bounty group? He’d figured that if he’d managed to escape them he’d be fine, but if others are just waiting to get at the thirty million gac prize he represents…how much _is_ thirty million gac?  
  
Enough to take some dangerous risks for, apparently. Enough to steal from other hunters. Enough to risk dealing with the Galra, even when Shiro is sure these people will never seek a gac of it. He isn’t liking this newfound feeling of being the most wanted person on an entire planet.   
  
But that just makes it all the more clear he needs to get back to the other paladins as soon as he can. The longer he’s away like this, the more hunters are going to start looking for him to get their prize…at least until his seven vargas are up, and he’s in Galra custody. Already he’s lost two of them, and he can all but hear the clock ticking down in his head until the point of no return.   
  
He forces himself back to focusing on escaping. After cautiously checking the locations of all the hunters again—ranged around the room with visuals on him, but nobody behind him—he goes back to trying the cuffs. He’s discovered there’s no way to stretch the energy bands that hold him, and certainly no way he can light up his arm. But he’s wondering if he can use the brute, mechanical strength of his prosthetic to crush the cuff on his left wrist. He’s been testing it cautiously, afraid that too much strength might activate the suppressor, or that too much movement will advertise what he’s doing to his captors. So far, neither has happened—but the cuff also hasn’t come off, either.  
  
He wraps his right hand around his left wrist again, and starts squeezing once more. It’s awkward when he can’t actually feel what he’s doing with his metal fingers, so mostly he has to act by the feel of things on his left arm, but he thinks he’s got the cuff. Now if he can just apply enough pressure, he can break it and…  
  
And what? Even if he can get it off, and somehow manage to instantly break the cuffs on his legs as well, then what? There’s one exit only, surrounded by five bounty hunters. He can maybe take them if he’s free, but he’s not sure if they can control the suppressor at all. Even if they can’t, his odds of getting out that door aren’t very good. He needs a plan.   
  
But he barely has time to try thinking on one when the toad hunter points at the screens again. “There, again! He looked right at us! He knows there’s surveillance.”  
  
“We gotta move, Jezrik,” Cri’irik, the twig-hunter, says. “We stay here, they’re gonna bust in and take our bounty.”   
  
“Like to see’em try,” the unilu says with a nasty smile. He twirls his weapon between all four of his hands in a challenge.  
  
But Jezrik shakes his head. “No. No fights if we can avoid it, or we’ll be paying off authorities here to avoid murder charges. I’m not wasting our bounty on that. We move now, before a raid hits and steals the prize. We’ll head for the southern safe-house, it’ll buy us a few more vargas at least. If we have to we can swap to the southeast one, too, to burn time until pickup.”   
  
“I’ll scout,” the blue-skinned hunter offers, wringing his hands anxiously. “See if I can mislead them. You guys take the back entrance.”   
  
“Good idea, Thodat,” Jezrik says with a nod. “You two, help me get our equipment packed up. Blortt, get Champion ready to move.”   
  
The blue-skinned hunter disappears out the single door of the musty safe-house, and  the unilu and Cri’irik start shutting down their tech setup while Jezrik packs it away. The toad-like hunter, Blortt apparently, comes over towards Shiro.   
  
Shiro mentally curses. If they move, there’s even less of a chance for the paladins to track him down, especially if these guys go into deeper hiding. He can’t let himself disappear like that.  
  
Blortt starts to unhook his cuffs from the chair, and another thought hits Shiro. Moving could be trouble, but it _might_ also provide him with exactly the opportunity he needs. These guys are anxious and distracted with the oncoming threats. They’ll be most vulnerable while moving. Maybe he can use that.  
  
“Get up,” the toad hunter snaps, hooking a hand under Shiro’s left arm and trying to drag him upright. Shiro’s actually taller than this alien, though, and it doesn’t work as well as Blortt probably hoped for. Shiro stumbles, and deliberately overplays it, staggering awkwardly into the hunter as he tries to regain his feet while they’re still bound.   
  
“Watch it!” Blortt snaps, jabbing Shiro in the side angrily and trying to shove him upright again. Shiro can feel himself teetering right a little under the weight of the prosthetic at the push. He doesn’t try to correct himself like he usually does, and lets himself crash to his knees.   
  
“What the quiznak—listen, we ain’t got time for your shit!” Blortt says angrily, digging fingers into Shiro’s shoulder to try and drag him upright again.  
  
Shiro winces at the touch—unlike actual toads, this guy has short, stubby claws that really do hurt when dug in like that. But he doesn’t help himself be pulled upright. Instead, he snaps, “It’s a little hard to move tied up like this, okay?”   
  
“Quit your whining. On your feet!”  
  
Shiro does get to his feet, but with obnoxious slowness. It is legitimately not easy to maneuver with a heavy metal prosthetic when both arms are tied behind oneself and one’s legs are bound chain-gang style, but he oversells it on purpose. His first step forward is made with equal deliberate care, like he’s trying very hard to not fall over again. He can practically see Blortt’s fury about to start steaming out his ears, but the hunter also seems very nervous.   
  
“Do you _want_ me to stab you?”  
  
“You can’t,” Shiro tells him bluntly. “Not if you want me to be in good condition for your thirty million gac. What if I fall and break my neck on that chair because I can’t move right with these cuffs on? I can’t move fast in these.”    
  
“Oh, for the love of…” Blortt looks both furious and anxious, and glances several times at the door, as if waiting for other hunters to come pouring through to slaughter them all. He shakes his head in exasperation, but speed is apparently more important to him at the moment, and reaches for Shiro’s wrists.   
  
_Yes! Just a couple more ticks and—_  
  
“The _quiznak_ do you think you’re doing, Blortt?”  
  
Blortt freezes as Jezrik comes stomping over, and Shiro inwardly curses again. _Damn_ it. He’d been so close to getting free.   
  
“Uncuffing him,” Blortt says, looking nervous for an entirely new reason now. “He’s moving too slow, we gotta _go,_ Jezrik. And it’s not like he’s any danger when he’s got the suppressor on—“  
  
“You _dumbass,_ ” Jezrik snaps, pushing Blortt forcefully away from Shiro. “You ever been to the arenas? Ever seen Champion in action?”  
  
“Could never afford it,” Blortt mumbles under his breath.   
  
“Well, I _have,_ ” Jezrik says, glaring down at the toad hunter. “He don’t need a damn electric arm to kill us all. Didn’t even _have_ one for his first registered kills. This guy’s a gods-damned psychopath and a war criminal, took on some of the biggest names in the arena and _shredded’em_. You keep him tied up at all times unless you got yourself a death wish, _clear?”_   
  
“I got it, Jezrik,” Blortt says, a little sullenly.  
  
Shiro’s stomach churns uncomfortably at the description of _himself_ in such cruel terms. Is that really what they think he is? Why they think he has a bounty? He’s sure it’s because he was a pet project of Haggar’s, and because of his black paladin status, but still. This guy had seen him fight in the arena. What had Jezrik seen him _do_ to earn such blatant hate, fear and disgust?  
  
Part of Shiro wishes he could remember. The other part of him is almost vehemently glad he can’t, at least for the moment. If he’s as monstrous as Jezrik seems to think, he doesn’t want to know what he’d been capable of back then.  
  
But he doesn’t have time to think on that right now. His deception failed, and he refuses to let them take him anywhere willingly, especially with other predators prowling around. He swings his arms bound behind him as hard as he can in Blortt’s direction, and the hunter curses in pain as he gets a metal arm to the eye. Even deactivated, its weight and solidity is enough to cause some serious damage, and the toad-like alien collapses on his back, clutching at his face.  
  
Shiro tries to sidestep Jezrik next to make a run for the door. Except he can’t really run with the energy shackles tying his ankles, and he barely makes it three quick-shuffling steps before Jezrik is on him. The massive alien is shockingly fast as he cuts Shiro off and drives a sledgehammer fist directly into Shiro’s stomach. Shiro staggers when the wind is knocked out of him completely and he stumbles. Jezrik follows with a hefty cuff to the side of his head, and Shiro sees stars as he collapses.   
  
“I’ll carry him,” Jezrik snaps. “You guys get the equipment. Let’s go.”   
  
Shiro’s vision is swimming again, and his mind churns, confused and unfocused. But he feels thick fingers dig into his vest and collar, and they haul him up like a misbehaving puppy, suspending him in midair. He blinks to try and clear his bleary vision. He’s barely able to catch Jezrik’s irritated glare in his direction, before the hunter leader throws Shiro over one of his shoulders in a sack carry. Shiro grunts when it knocks the wind out of him again, and his head spins alarmingly.   
  
They move fast after that, which doesn’t agree at all with Shiro’s stomach or his spinning head. He’s draped over Jezrik’s shoulder facing backwards, which is disorienting, and with his arms still bound behind his back he can’t do anything to steady or support himself. He’s still winded and dazed, his head and stomach both throbbing from Jezrik’s attacks. But after five doboshes or so, he starts to feel himself rally, and feel his thoughts dragging themselves back together after that literally stunning blow.  
  
 _This is your one chance,_ he tells himself. _You need to get out of here while they’re on the move. Disappear into the city and stay hidden until you get back to the others. Maybe you can—_  
  
Jezrik screams and sways alarmingly, and belatedly Shiro registers the sound of what he thinks is some sort of firearm discharging. The massive alien collapses, and Shiro grunts as he’s dislodged and hits the ground painfully on his right side. HIs right arm protests with a flare of pain as it’s jarred the wrong way at the connection point, but Shiro ignores it as best as he can. Jezrik’s not moving. One of his arms is still flopped over Shiro’s legs, but Shiro’s able to kick his way free, and suddenly he’s not being held anymore.   
  
_Now’s your chance. Run!_  
  
He manages to drag himself to his feet, ignoring the twinges of pain from the many bruises he’s no doubt gained from that fall, and the throb in his stomach and head. He spots an alley in the distance, and shuffles as fast as he can towards it with the manacles in place. _Get out of the hotzone first, then figure out how to get these off—_  
  
Something hits him hard from behind, tackling him back down to the ground, and he feels a sharp stab of pain as his head cracks against the ground hard. He gasps as the wind is knocked out of him for a third time, and distantly wonders why this keeps happening to him.  
  
“Quiznak, he’s still conscious!”  
  
“What the hell were these idiots thinking?”  
  
“Almost got away—nice catch there Katala—“  
  
Shiro can feel one of the speakers on top of him, and fights to rise as he starts to regain his senses again. He just tasted freedom—he’s not getting taken again—  
  
“Knock him out! We don’t have time to deal with _him_ fighting us, the Tideripper hunters are onto the scent too!”   
  
“Quiznak, hang on—“  
  
Something pricks him in the neck, and almost immediately he starts to feel light-headed. _Drugs_ , he realizes with a sudden spike of alarm. _They’ve drugged me with something—no, no, no no no, I can’t let them, I was so close, I have to fight—_  
  
He tries to shove his captor off, but it’s useless. He feels curiously uncoordinated, and his right arm feels so _heavy_. It’s harder to focus, and they’re so _strong_. He can’t fight them, he can’t get away, he can’t…  
  
 _No…no, I…_  
  
He’s dragged into the dark.   
  


* * *

  
  
“No no _no!”_ Pidge curses in frustration. She kicks the empty chair in the moldy-smelling warehouse. “I had it! He was right _here!_ Where _is_ he?”  
  
Hunk can’t blame her for being frustrated. He feels the same way, and judging by the expressions on everyone else’s faces, so do they.  
  
It’s been three more vargas since he and Lance first discovered Shiro’s bounty poster and brought it to the rest of the team. Those had been some anxious vargas, with most of them unable to do much of anything other than Pidge. All of them had hated waiting while Shiro was in danger.  
  
But Pidge had made progress. A _lot_ of it. With the knowledge that Shiro had a legal bounty out there—even if the legalities of it were questionable—she’d changed her tactics and started searching different parts of the network. She’d managed to pull any of Shiro’s known records from the local authorities’ database, and track individuals who had shown any kind of interest in his bounty. She’d also looked through hacked video feeds of anyone a little too interested in Shiro during their festival outing that day, and made a little progress when Keith swore he recognized at least one of the potential suspects. Between cross referencing those two tables and looking up data on their prime suspect, she’d managed to narrow down the search location. And from there it had just been a matter of branching out, hacking security feeds, and doing manual sweeps in person.  
  
They’d found the place, in the end: an unregistered house that they were sure functioned as a safe-house for their suspect. But when they’d arrived, the place had been deserted. More than that, it looked like it had been stripped bare in a hurry, and that only fairly recently.  
  
It makes Hunk feel sick to his stomach to think they might have missed Shiro by just a varga or two.   
  
“I think there’s something going on near here,” Lance says, frowning. He’s standing by the door, bayard at the ready, although still in his civilian gear; the paladin armor was too noticeable for this. “You can kinda hear sirens or something. Bet Shiro’s bounty is related somehow.”   
  
“No bet,” Keith says grimly. “Let’s go.” He sweeps out the door, expression grim. Neither Coran nor Allura had been able to keep him from joining in the Shiro recovery once they’d had a destination, no matter his injuries. He does still walk with a slight limp, but Coran’s first aid had done a decent job getting him back on his feet. Nobody else argues, and the others follow after.   
  
It doesn’t take long to find the source of the noise, and there’s a small crowd filling the street just a few blocks over. It’s impossible for them to push close, but Hunk can see over the crowd easily enough.   
  
He almost wishes he couldn’t. “Looks like there’s been a murder or something,” he tells the others, frowning. “It looks kinda like a crime scene back on Earth.”  
  
“Shiro’s not there, is he?” Keith asks. There’s a trace of anxiety in his voice.  
  
“I don’t see him,” Lance says. Standing on tiptoe, Lance can just barely see over the crowd’s heads and shoulders, while Keith and Pidge are too short to manage. “There’s a really big guy, looks like some kind of elephant or rhino or something…and one of those four-armed guys from the space mall—“  
  
“Unilu—“  
  
“—right, but I don’t see Shiro.” Lance frowns, and Hunk nods in agreement.   
  
Keith’s straining to see over the crowd with obvious frustration, so Hunk crouches to give him a boost. It’s a mark of how worried Keith is for Shiro that he accepts it without complaining; Keith’s still not very good at personal contact. Once he can see, he hisses through his teeth. “I recognize one of them. The big guy. Now that I see him, I can kind of remember him ordering Shiro to surrender or they’d kill me.”   
  
“Shiro wouldn’t have done _that_ to anyone, though,” Hunk says, completely confident. “I mean, I know what the poster said, but…that’s not _our_ Shiro.”  
  
“It’s not even consistent with his fighting style,” Pidge adds. At some point she’s squirreled up on Lance’s shoulders to see better. “That big guy died by some kind of gunshot wound.”  
  
“But since we know it’s not Shiro, then where _is_ he?” Lance asks, frowning.   
  
“Somebody else had to have attacked,” Keith says, scowling. “Maybe they took Shiro. Or maybe the rest of this group did. There were more than two when they attacked us.”  
  
“No…it _could_ be another group,” Pidge says, frowning now. “When I was hunting these guys down… _everyone_ on this sector of the net is talking about this bounty. Everyone. Licensed hunters, people down on their luck with money, _everyone._ These guys got to Shiro first, but if somebody else had the chance…”  
  
“A lot of Mercury Gameflux II’s,” Lance repeats softly.   
  
“Then where do we even _start?”_ Hunk asks fretfully. “With these guys we at least had Keith’s memory to sort of go off of. If this is a whole new group that got him, we’re back at square one. No, we’re at square _negative_ one. What do we even do now?”  
  
Pidge’s eyes narrow in determination. “If _they_ can find him, _I_ can find him,” she snarls in determination. “Let’s head back, see if Allura’s made any useful contacts, and I’ll hit the net again.”   
  
Hunk still feels anxious as he lowers Keith, but nods in agreement. This is a major setback, but they’re not leaving without Shiro. They aren’t going to stop until they bring him home again.   
  
That’s a promise.  
  


* * *

  
  
When Shiro wakes up again, he’s almost not sure he has at first. It’s pitch black, and he can’t make out anything around him. His head feels cloudy and struggles to focus, and it takes him almost a full dobash to realize there’s a weight on his eyes that’s uncomfortable that he can’t quite place.  
  
 _Blindfold,_ he realizes after a moment. Well, that answers that question—wherever he is, it’s not with allies.  
  
He stays carefully still, not advertising that he’s woken yet…though admittedly, at least half of that is due to his body still feeling so _heavy._ He vaguely remembers being drugged with something, and the after effects are still there, weighing him down and leaving him dizzy. Plus his head is throbbing…and how that he thinks about it, he sort of remembers hitting his head too, when he’d been hit from behind. Not moving is just preferable, really.  
  
He tries to use his other senses to figure out where he is. There’s a dusty sort of smell in the air that doesn’t give him much to work with, and it’s very quiet. He doesn’t hear any captors, or any noises of the outside world that might give him some idea of where he is.   
  
He knows better than to think he’s been left entirely unattended. But maybe if he’s lucky, his newest captors aren’t nearby, and he can find a way to escape. With renewed determination and hope, he tilts his head, trying to drag the side of his face along his shoulder to see if he can dislodge the blindfold. It makes his head throb in pain and his stomach churns with nausea, but he keeps trying gamely.   
  
He can start to feel it pulling loose, but before he actually dislodges it, something grabs his chin and forces it upward. He can feel sharp claws digging into his skin, and winces despite himself.   
  
“Stop that,” a voice orders sharply. Shiro can feel the breath of the speaker on his face, and realizes they’re very close. “Leave it, or you will be punished. You must be alive—not pain free.”  
  
Shiro winces again as his head spins alarmingly, and the speaker’s claws dig in a little deeper. He can’t quite coordinate his tongue enough to answer, and couldn’t speak even if he wanted to, the way they’re grabbing his jaw. But they seem to think their message has been delivered, and after a moment they let go of him.  
  
“How many more vargas until the drop?” the speaker asks. Shiro hears footsteps as they move away from him.   
  
“Two and a half more vargas, Katala.”  
  
 _Two and a half more vargas?_ Shiro can’t believe it. Somehow he’s lost two vargas to being unconscious. Two precious vargas of escape attempts, gone. He can feel the time pressing on him. His heart starts to thud harder at the even more impossible task of escaping under these circumstances. Already, this team of hunters seems to be more skilled than Jezrik’s team. And Shiro can feel he’s not in very good condition to escape. He’s not sure what that drug’s done to him, but it’s hard to think, and that’s on top of all the head injuries Jezrik had given him. He’s bound, bruised everywhere, blind, and his head is killing him.   
  
_Go carefully, then,_ he warns himself. _Make sure you have a way out you can take. Failed attempts will just cost strength you don’t have._  
  
“I don’t like it,” the speaker—Katala—says. Shiro can hear movement, and thinks maybe she’s pacing. “This safe-house is well hidden, but this prize is worth enough to make others tear the city down just to find it.”   
  
“Or kill people over it,” a third voice says. It sounds sullen—and also familiar. It takes Shiro a moment to recognize the voice, but when he does he hisses in surprise. That’s Thodat—the blue-skinned hunter from Jezrik’s team.   
  
_“You,”_ Shiro hisses under his breath.   
  
“Quiet,” Katala snaps immediately. “You will not speak, or you will be punished. I do not have time to deal with your misbehavior.” A shifting noise. “Don’t act so upset, Thodat. You were never a part of that team to begin with. And from what you said, Jezrik was only one step away from earning a bounty for himself. I’ve no pity for the idiot.”   
  
“Killing’s going too far,” Thodat mutters, still sullen. “Now we’ll have to pay off the authorities…”  
  
“Only if they know it’s us, and there are dozens out there whom Jezrik has irritated over the years,” Katala says dismissively. “But there are others still who have not earned such an end, yet they still have their eyes on _our_ prize.” Shiro flinches when her claws dig into his shoulder from out of nowhere, and grits his teeth to keep from displaying any unease even further. “I won’t let them have it.”   
  
The claws disappear, and Shiro hears Katala stepping away from him, across the room. “Keep an eye on that surveillance, Attelik,” she orders. “I want to know the moment anyone even gets close to our safe-house. The moment we suspect attackers, we are leaving.”   
  
“Yes, Katala,” another voice answers, meek and obeying.  
  
Something feels off about all of this to Shiro, and he struggles to make his aching, spinning head to put the pieces into alignment. There’s a disconnect here—Katala seems very sure of herself and what she’s doing, and Shiro’s sure he’s not breaking out under his own accord. A careful examination of his prosthetic with his right arm tells him the suppressor is still in place, and he’s too messed up to take on such a prepared hunter and her cronies. But they seem nervous—excited about having caught Shiro for his bounty, but scared of the ramifications it might have. Thodat doesn’t seem to get along with Katala well. Maybe it’s a weakness he can exploit.   
  
Shiro decides to go for it. It’s the only thing he can act on, right now, and he can hear those two and a half vargas ticking down in his head.   
  
“You’ve got every reason to be nervous, don’t you?” Shiro asks, almost conversationally.   
  
There’s an awkward silence for a moment. “Be quiet,” Katala snaps from the other side of the room, but Shiro knows he’s got the ear of the others now.  
  
“After all…you guys found Jezrik because Thodat ratted him out, right?” he observes out loud. He’s struggling very hard to make sure his words don't slur, speaking slowly to ensure he can pronounce everything right. He can’t let his words lose meaning. It seems to be working, though. “They seemed pretty confident they wouldn’t be found. But you guys kept getting closer, right? And there was another team getting close too, wasn’t there?”  
  
“The Tiderippers,” the meek voice says.  
  
“Enough! Shut up!” Katala snaps. “Do not listen to this idiot, he is only trying to free himself!”  
  
“So somebody else in Jezrik’s crew had to tip them off, too, right?” Shiro asks out loud. “Two traitors in a single hunting team. Who’s the traitor here?”  
  
He knows immediately he’s gone too far when he hears stomping, and clawed hands wrap around his throat. _“No one,”_ he nears Katala’s voice snarl right in his face. “There is _no traitor_ on my team. My men are _loyal._ I have had enough of your words.”   
  
Shiro can tell. He can’t speak anymore, with her hand on his throat like a vice. He chokes, and he’s starting to feel light-headed, struggles to take in air and he _can’t_ —  
  
She releases him at the last moment, just before his mind gives up and sinks back into unconsciousness. He sags in the chair he’s bound to, and takes in harsh, ragged breaths when he can again, coughing and wheezing.   
  
But for all that, he knows he’s been successful. Katala is furious, but she can’t take back the thoughts or destroy Shiro’s words, and they’re already in her mens’ brains now. Shiro can tell from the awkward silence that the rest of her team is considering it carefully. And if they can’t trust each other, they can’t work as a team.  
  
If they can’t work as a team, he might have a chance.  
  
So it’s risky, but he throws out one last thought for them to chew on. “It doesn’t matter how much you believe this poster,” he says. His voice is rasping now thanks to Katala’s attack, but he still manages to speak. “The Galra aren’t going to give you that gac. They don’t care about the bounty. You don’t mean anything to them. At best they let you go alive. At worst, you go to the slave pens with me.”   
  
There’s awkward shifting, and the uneasiness in the group is all but palpable. Shiro knows he’s making progress. At least he’s laying the groundwork for an eventual escape, if he can just—  
  
“I have had enough of this idiot’s words,” Katala snarls. She seizes Shiro by the jaw again and forces his head up until his neck feels like it’s about to snap. He grunts in pain, but can’t do much else when bound. “Drug him.”  
  
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Katala,” a fourth voice says. “The sedative shouldn’t have had that much of an affect on him last time. It was only supposed to put him down for half a varga, not two full vargas. It might be too strong for his species. Another dose could kill him—“  
  
“Then dilute it, or find another way to knock him out,” Katala snaps, clearly finished with the whole mess. “I will not have Champion spitting lies and poisoning your minds. _Knock. Him. Out.”_   
  
_Not lies,_ Shiro wants to scream. He has no love for these people, but it’s a fair warning. The Galra won’t play nice at that drop zone. They’ll take Shiro regardless, and if there’s any protest over payment, Katala and her followers are either dead, or slaves.   
  
But they don’t listen, and Shiro can hear another set of footsteps as they come towards him. Too late, he realizes he’s over played his hand. Maybe he’s seeded discontent through the group, but that does no good if he can’t take advantage of it.   
  
He feels a touch at his neck, and struggles to pull away. But he’s still bound tightly to the chair, and Katala has a firm hold of his jaw. Plus his head is still spinning from the effects of the drug still in his system, and it throbs painfully. He simply doesn’t have the strength to get away.   
  
The sharp prick at his neck feels like failure just as much as it does pain. Shiro struggles against its effects as the drug courses through his veins again, but he can’t fight the darkness that envelopes his mind. His body sags as he’s finally dragged under once again.  
  


* * *

  
  
It’s been a harrowing few vargas since Keith and the rest of the team’s return to their hotel suite, after leaving the grizzly murder scene. Pidge has been struggling valiantly to find Shiro, following every lead to its inevitable dead end. They’ve tried going out into the city two more times to check probable locations, but they’ve always returned with no Shiro. The group that has him now is clever, it seems. They’ve been rotating between safe-houses carefully, and deliberately spreading false rumors about where they might have gone to ground. They have no intention of losing their thirty million gac.   
  
It’s been frustrating, and Keith is desperate for some news, _any_ news, that they can really take action on. He hates sitting around and doing nothing, hates feeling like Shiro is out there and there’s nothing he can do to contribute. Even his slowly returning memories of the attack are now useless; those attackers aren’t the ones that have Shiro anymore.   
  
It’s impossible to know where he is at all, or even if he’s transferred hands again since the _last_ time they got any news. The entire underbelly of the city is on fire, talking about this legendary thirty million gac bounty, and everyone is trying their hands at getting a hold of Champion. Misinformation is spreading like wildfire too, and as good as she is, there’s only so much Pidge can do to sort out the false from the real.   
  
The team is starting to get scared, and Keith can see it in all of them. He’s re-assumed temporary command almost by default with Shiro’s absence, and he’s learned enough in his time as leader before to recognize the signs of waning team confidence. And he’s not even sure what he can do to bolster it. That was always his worst skill as a leader, and it’s even harder when he’s feeling that exact same fear himself.   
  
But then it happens. Pidge—dark lines under her eyes, drooping with exhaustion, surrounded by picked-at snacks Hunk has unsuccessfully tried to force on her—suddenly lets out a whoop of excitement. “I’ve got it!”  
  
Everyone instantly focuses on her. “You found Shiro?” Keith asks, standing up too fast and immediately regretting it when his leg twinges a little. He’s still not fully healed—not that he’s going to let that stop him.  
  
“Not exactly where he _is_ ,” Pidge says, “but I think I know where he’s _going_ to be.” She brings up a screen, with an image of a Galra officer on it. “Somebody hacked this off of the first team that attacked you guys, by intercepted the connection. Looks like it’s an arrangement with the Galra to turn in Shiro in exchange for his bounty. There’s an ETA of seven vargas from the point the transmission was made, and coordinates.”   
  
“That’s great, Pidge!” Hunk says excitedly. He looks like he wants to give her an appreciative bear hug, but restrains himself only because she’s practically attached the laptop, and they still need that. “You did amazing!”  
  
“It’s not great,” Pidge says irritably. “And if I was amazing I’d have found this _vargas_ ago. Even as it is I had to hack into data about licensed bounty hunters and follow the trail back, and there’s so much false information this was hard to pick out at first, but even so. The data signature here is definitely Galra, I recognize it from other transmissions, they use a really unique signature that—“  
  
“Hate to interrupt,” Lance says, “But the timestamp on that thing—am I reading that translation right? Because I’m really hoping I’m not reading it right.”   
  
Coran leans over Pidge’s shoulders and narrows his eyes at the readouts. They widen a moment later. “Quiznak! That call already took place a little over six vargas ago!”  
  
Keith’s eyes narrow. “Suit up,” he orders. “Forget subtlety, we’re going in fast. Shiro doesn’t have time to waste and we are _not_ letting the Galra take him again.”  
  
“But—our mission?” Hunk asks. “I mean, I’m _totally_ on board with saving Shiro, of course, but isn’t going in guns blazing kinda going to ruin our chances at starting a resistance from the ground up? I thought this had to be subtle.”  
  
“Keith is right. Forget subtlety,” Allura says, hands on hips. “Our contacts have been resistant to assisting us at every moment I speak with them. They are afraid of acting, and do not seem happy to know we have the infamous bloodthirsty ‘Champion’ on our team. I suspect more than a few of them are eyeing his bounty as well, for whatever purposes they may have.” She shakes her head. “This planet is too used to being under the Galra thumb. I do not trust those here. I do not think they want to be free, and we don’t have enough power between all of us to enforce it. But I will not lose one of my paladins for an unreachable ideal.”   
  
“You heard the pretty lady, Hunk,” Lance says. He’s already breaking open their supplies to expose their neatly packed away uniforms. “Let’s suit up. Where we going, anyway? The Galra outpost?”  
  
“No. That’s the crazy thing—they don’t seem to even know what’s going on over here on this side of the planet,” Pidge says, shoving her keyboard at Coran as she breaks for her own armor. “This is some big shot coming to the planet itself, I think. We gotta get to the drop zone before Shiro does and this guy can get him. Once they get him on a ship and take him away…”  
  
Who knows where he’ll go, then.   
  
Keith narrows his eyes as he slips into his breastplate, ignoring his bruises. They’re not going to let that happen. No matter what.   
  
It takes them only a few minutes to get fully suited up and holster their bayards. “Head for the ship when you’ve gotten Shiro,” Allura says. “The Lions are too large to maneuver safely in the city, so we will have a pod ready for transport. As soon as you get Shiro, we’re leaving this planet. It’s too dangerous otherwise.”   
  
They nod in agreement, and head out the door. _We’re on our way, Shiro,_ Keith thinks grimly. _You are never going back. We’re on our way._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Blackpaladinweek 2.0: Free Day --> "Escape"  
> It's the final varga and Shiro's got to engineer an escape somehow, before it's too late.

“—transport arriving soon—“  
  
“—ake up, but as long as he’s still breathing, I don’t care.”   
  
“Katala, more drugs are a _bad_ idea. Two doses is already having a significant effect on him. Three will kill him for sure.”  
  
Shiro groans softly as he blinks into consciousness again. His mind swims, and he feels dizzy and floating. Everything is still black. He doesn’t understand where he is. Everything is confusing and sounds like it’s underwater and far away. There’s an awful taste in his mouth.   
  
“He’s waking, Katala.”  
  
“Tch. I don’t have time for his nonsense.”   
  
Shiro starts as something fastens around his jaw, sharp points digging into his skin. Instinctively he tries to jerk away, not exactly understanding but’s going on, but not liking it. The whatever it is holds him fast though, and something snarls in his face.  
  
What’s going on? Where is he? What’s happening? The questions slip clumsily through his head as he tries to pull away again. His head feels so fuzzy, but he instinctively knows whatever has him is bad news.  
  
“ _Enough,_ Champion.”  
  
Champion? Champion? No. No, he’s not that anymore, is he? He escaped. He’d escaped. He was _free._ That was _real_. He’s so sure of it. But the thing gripping him is unrelenting, and he has no mobility, no control, and that female voice is relentless and…it’s not Haggar, is it? It doesn’t sound like Haggar, but Haggar can be _anyone_ —  
  
“—n’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, but I am warning you now, do _not_ test me. I have ways to make you suffer _without_ extensively damaging you per the rules of your bounty. I will not put up with your antics again.”   
  
Bounty? Wait…  
  
The memories of his recent capture start to trickle back to him in slow drips, but Shiro recalls enough to know he’s not on a Galra ship. At least, not yet. But his time must be running down for sure, now.   
  
“Do you understand me?” the speaker—Katala, he remembers now—asks warningly. Shiro can’t do much but grunt an acknowledgement. Even if he could speak, his tongue feels too thick in his mouth to manage actual speech. He’s not in good shape. Now is not the time to start testing her.   
  
“Good.” She releases his jaw with a shove, and he groans when it sends his head both throbbing _and_ spinning at the same time. Head injury and a double dose of sedatives. Bad combo. He barely hears her stomping away from him, but does hear her snap, “Get him ready to move. Our drop is in less than a varga and we must be there promptly. Be wary, there will be other hunters waiting to steal him.”  
  
Shiro can’t help but groan at that again. Less than a varga? Stupid drug, keeping him down for the count. This is going to be his last chance to make a break for it and he can barely keep his head upright, much less manage a coordinated escape attempt.   
  
Katala sniffs distastefully, and then adds, “Gag him. I can’t have him making noise like that, or shouting. He’ll bring down every hunter in the city on us.”  
  
There’s sounds of movement as someone approaches Shiro. They wrap some kind of cloth between his teeth and around his head to muffle any noise he makes. He curses inwardly and tries to pull his head way, but whoever it is pulls it roughly back in place, and finishes the job with enough force to make his head throb harder than before.   
  
He isn’t even given a chance to recover from that before somebody hauls him to his feet. He immediately tries feigning difficulty moving, although this time it’s a lot less ‘feigning’ and a lot more ‘legitimately lacking coordination.’ They don’t bother to uncuff him or even remove the blindfold to make travel easier; he barely makes it two shuffling steps before somebody hikes him over one shoulder again like a sack.  
  
Shiro feels a little indignant at this. By Earth standards he’s not a small guy, and his Galra arm weighs a ton. It shouldn’t be as easy to haul him around as everyone is making it look.  
  
They move fast from there. Shiro can’t tell where they’re going, only that they’re running, and that someone’s slim shoulder jabbing into his stomach is not agreeing with him. If he wasn’t gagged, he’d throw up on them, partly out of spite. As it is he focuses on forcing down his nausea before it ends up choking him to death.   
  
It’s uncomfortable, and the jarring movements hurt his head and leave him dizzy. But he can still hear that ticking clock in his head, counting down his last doboshes of freedom, and as awful as he feels he doesn’t intend to let that come easily. He just needs to gather his strength, and find the perfect place to strike.  
  
 _Patience,_ he cautions himself.  
  
His patience pays off. His carrier is talking to someone—another hunter team member, he thinks—and although the two speak in low voices, Shiro is close enough to hear.  
  
“—left for a varga, you don’t think…”  
  
“He’s on our side, wouldn’t turn on us.”  
  
“Yeah, but us and the Tiderippers gettin’ to the bounty at the same time….this guy’s worth a lot of gac. You could pay off any…miscommunications…easy.”  
  
“If people find us it ain’t gonna be because of any of us…right? It’s gonna be because everyone wants this asshole.” Shiro feels somebody jab him uncomfortably in the side. “Starting to wonder if this bounty is even worth it…”  
  
“I hear ya. The money’s nice, but I’m not dying over this if it comes to it. Not like Jezrik’s team.”   
  
If Shiro’s head and stomach weren’t bothering him so badly, he’d have smiled. It sounds like his words earlier weren’t completely a waste. He can hear in the tones of his captors that they’re nervous, and their loyalty sounds like it’s waning. That’s all in his favor.   
  
Now he just needs a way to take advantage of it.  
  
Shiro’s not sure how long it takes to find the chance. Maybe fifteen doboshes, maybe twenty; it’s hard to accurately measure time. But he can tell from the panting breaths of his captors that they’ve been running for a decent distance, when he hears the rush of more footsteps coming from the left.  
  
“Thieves!” Katala yells, from somewhere that sounds a little farther ahead. “Do not lose that bounty—prepare for combat—“  
  
There’s a blast that sounds like some sort of laser pistol, and a wet _thud_ as somebody hits the ground. One of speakers from earlier hisses, “ _Quiznak,_ forget this, I’m out!” and Shiro hears the sudden slap of feet as one of Katala’s men abandons them. The sounds of combat are suddenly all around Shiro—the clash of swords and the rapport of gunfire. The hunter carrying him swerves anxiously, trying to keep an eye on the battle, or perhaps just run from it now that their partner has left them to the proverbial wolves. The movement makes Shiro’s stomach roil with nausea and his head spin with vertigo.  
  
But this is his chance, and he knows he’ll never get another one after this.  
  
His hands are still tied behind his back where he’s slung over his captor’s shoulder, and his legs dangle somewhere presumably in front of the captor’s chest. With a grunt, he gathers all the strength left in him and knees the hunter as hard as he can in the stomach. When they let out a soft _wuff_ of breathless surprise and keel forward automatically, loosening their grip on him, Shiro swings his metal arm as hard as he can into his carrier’s head. He doesn’t have a lot of room to move, but the prosthetic’s weight is more than sufficient even with minimal space to wind up, and his captor’s head whips sideways at the impact. Whoever it is drops him as they collapse.  
  
Shiro feels victory for about a single tick before he hits the ground. His string of bad luck continues, and he crashes down awkwardly on his feet, unable to see and unprepared for how close the ground is. There’s a sharp pain in his ankle as he rolls it the wrong way. A tick later Shiro hisses when the rest of him smacks into what feels like some sort of pavement, unable to catch his fall with his bound hands.   
  
“No! Stop him! He’s _mine!”_  
  
Shiro groans as his stomach churns and his brain feels like it’s sloshing around inside his head, but knows better than to dwell on it. He’s not sure how long he has, and he _can’t_ lose this chance. He manages to twist onto his side, and draw his legs up enough that he can hook his bound wrists beneath his feet and back in front of him. Then he immediately uses his bound hands to drag the gag and blindfold off his face and around his neck.   
  
He blinks his eyes open, and almost isn’t aware that he has at first. He’s outside, but the planet’s seventeen-varga nights mean it’s still dark out even after his capture, and _quiznak_ , is it still the same _night?_ It feels like too long. There are street-lamps in the city, but they’re dim and blurry to Shiro’s eyes, ringed with wavering halos that sometimes seem to double or triple unexpectedly. His eyes don’t seem to focus right, and he struggles to make out other details in the dark. He’s not sure which shapes are foe and which are inanimate. There’s a lot of noise all around him—combat sounds, screams of pain, angry yells—and a lot of movement to go with it, but Shiro’s not sure if the movement is due to things going on around him, or due to his own swaying and compromised vision.  
  
 _Drugs and concussion,_ he reminds himself for the umpteenth time. _Just run. Hurry._   
  
He struggles to his feet, and it really is a _struggle_ to do just that. His left arm lacks the coordination and the strength to lever himself upright for any length of time. The ankle he’d landed wrong on sends bright bolts of stabbing pain through him the moment he tries to put any weight on it. Even when he does finally regain his feet, he sways alarmingly, and it’s shockingly difficult to keep his balance. The last time he’d felt like this had been just after Ulaz had freed him from the examination table and sent him on his way, still under the effects of a nasty sedative. But this feels infinitely worse.   
  
Still, as much as he’d _love_ to lay back down and simply not move for a hundred thousand years, he knows better.   
  
His captor, a skinny doglike being, is struggling dazedly to his own feet, and starts to lunges at Shiro. But a fish-faced attacker leaps in to intercept, trying to reach Shiro first, and the two engage in a nasty scuffle over the prize, screaming and snarling.  
  
 _Get out of here, now,_ Shiro reminds his sloshing brain again. _Hurry._   
  
He hurries as fast as he can with the energy manacles around his ankles. The best he can do is a limping shuffle, really, and it takes all his attention to stay upright. But he manages to hobble towards what he thinks is an open street at the most breakneck pace he can manage, which probably could still be outpaced by a particularly ambitious little old granny.   
  
He shoots furtive looks over his shoulder when he can, trying to make sure nobody else has seen him. Nobody else seems to have noticed he’s slipped away, and his dark casual clothing is actually a boon now, helping him blend into the dark streets. If he can just get to a new street and blend into the shadows—just a little more—  
  
A boneless fleshy appendage whips out of nowhere to wrap around Shiro’s torso, and he gags as it constricts the air out of his lungs. Concentration broken, Shiro finds his legs collapsing beneath him, and the tug draws the tentacle limb all the tighter around his torso. He struggles desperately to take in air, _any_ air, just a little, he can’t _breathe_ —  
  
“Those fools can fight over you,” his newest captor says in a burbling hiss, and he can hear them slithering closer. “While they fight over scraps nobody will notice I’ve taken you away. Hah! That bounty is all mi—“  
  
The speaker jerks suddenly and collapses. Shiro falls awkwardly to his hands and knees, and gasps in relief as he’s able to draw in precious oxygen again. And the relief spreads through the rest of him as well—because the weapon that had brought down the latest bounty hunting opportunist had been familiar, and Shiro’s never been so happy to see that flash of blue in his life.  
  
He blinks spots out of his eyes and stares up at the nearest building. His vision is still hazy, but he can make out the white blur on the edge of the four-story building. And seconds later Lance yells, “I got you covered, go!” and another blue flash of his bayard firing fills the air again.  
  
Three more white blurs dart around the corner and head for Shiro, and for the first time he doesn’t find himself instinctively needing to run. Even squinting and struggling to focus he can’t quite make out their details until they’re almost on top of him, but he’s absolutely confident those uniforms have splashes of red, green and yellow to them.   
  
There’s a howl from behind Shiro as several of the bounty hunters spot him and charge in. But Shiro’s not alone anymore, and suddenly he has nothing to fear. Several of the hunters go down in quick flashes of blue, yowling in pain. And then one of the white shapes steps forward and takes form, and Hunk levels his own massive bayard at the remainder. The cannon fires with machine-gun sprays of energy, and the hunters screech in surprise as they’re driven back, or risk being pummeled.  
  
All but one, at least. A catlike humanoid, tall, lithe and athletic, darts through the hail of yellow energy in a blur of constant motion so quick Shiro can barely keep his unfocused eyes on her. “That bounty is _mine,”_ she snarls as she darts closer, movements graceful and precise, and Shiro recognizes Katala’s voice.   
  
“Watch out,” he warns, voice raspy and slurring, as he struggles to his feet. “She’s dangerous—“  
  
Keith meets her head on as she reaches them, red bayard against the long curved scimitar-blade in her claws. She’s lightning fast, and Keith is almost equal to her, using sword and shield fluidly together to deflect, parry and strike. But her sword glances off his armor too often to be acceptable, and Shiro belatedly realizes that Keith is limping a little. It dawns on him that Keith must have been injured at the same time Shiro had been captured, and he remembers once again unilu’s dagger to Keith’s throat.   
  
“You are only _delaying_ my capture,” Katala snarls, smashing her sword into Keith’s arm-mounted holo-shield with enough force to make it flicker.   
  
“Kind of the point,” Keith snaps back.   
  
Before Katala can react something snakes around her legs and torso—a bright green whip of energy, with a triangular grapple. She curses in surprise, and then shrieks when the grapple hums and crackles with electricity. It lasts for maybe five ticks, and then disperses, but by that point Katala’s eyes are already rolling and she collapses to the ground. Pidge recoils her bayard as she stands over the fallen bounty hunter, angry yet satisfied.  
  
Shiro stares for a moment, and then looks around at the others. “Good…good timing,” he praises, swaying a little in place.  
  
“Woah, careful there,” Hunk says. He drops his bayard, which disperses in a flash of yellow energy back to its holster, and catches Shiro under his left arm to help him stay upright. “Geez, you don’t look good, Shiro. No offense, or anything.”  
  
“Lossa…drugs,” Shiro slurs thickly. Wow, he hadn’t imagined speaking would be as complicated as this, but it’s really taking all his concentration. “An’ head in…injurur…y’know.”   
  
“Yeah, we know,” Hunk says, sympathetic.  
  
“Head’s up guys, more incoming!” Lance yells from above.   
  
Keith takes a defensive position in front of them, sword and shield at the ready, while Lance continues sniping from his rooftop cover. It buys Pidge time to cut the cuffs off of Shiro’s wrists and ankles, which is a massive relief to Shiro.   
  
“S’press’r,” he mumbles, pointing to the odd-shaped bracelet object still fastened to his metal wrist as well. “Can’t…” Can’t find the words to say, apparently, so he makes an ineffectual punching motion with his metal fist.  
  
Hunk grabs the wrist gently and turns his arm over carefully, frowning. “They embedded this,” he says after a moment. “It’s going to take the workshop to get it out safely.”  
  
“Doesn’t matter anyway, it’s not like he can fight right now,” Pidge adds.  
  
 _“Guys!”_ Lance yells insistently from the rooftop. “Moving! Really good idea right now!”  
  
“He’s right,” Keith says, as he slices an errant throwing blade out of the air with his own sword. “We gotta go!”  
  
“I’m gonna carry you, Shiro,” Hunk says. “No way you can move fast enough on your own.” For one horrifying minute Shiro half expects Hunk to sling him over one shoulder in yet another sack carry. But Hunk crouches down in front of him for a piggyback instead, and Pidge helps him coordinate enough to actually climb on. It’s still not exactly comfortable, with Hunk’s jetpack cramming uncomfortably into his ribs, and it’s frustrating and embarrassing to even need to be carried, but it’s better than being treated like cargo.   
  
“Go go go!” Lance yells from above, and they do. Pidge darts ahead of Hunk to act as point, bayard at the ready. Keith takes the rear guard, and when they reach the end of the road and the row of buildings Lance is sniping from, he soars down on his jetpack and helps Keith pick off followers. The hunters haven’t given up, and Shiro can still hear them roaring behind him, angry at their bounty slipping away.  
  
“Geez, they’re persistent,” Pidge snaps. “Can’t they just back off?”  
  
“M’worth a lotta money,” Shiro tells them seriously, although he has a feeling it’s only loud enough for Hunk to make out.  
  
“Yeah, we found that out,” Hunk says. He’s trying to sound cheerful, but Shiro thinks he might also be nervous. “We got this covered, Shiro, you just let us handle everything.”  
  
“Oh.” Shiro blinks at this, considering. “Good. Hey. Think’m gonna—“  
  
He doesn’t get the chance to say “pass out,” but he’s pretty sure they’ll get the idea.  
  


* * *

  
  
Shiro wakes up an entire quintent later in a cryo-pod, much to his bewilderment. He doesn’t hurt anymore, his head feels clear, and even the suppressor on his metal wrist has been removed at some point. He doesn’t even remember having any bad dreams or unwanted memories.  
  
Unsurprisingly, everyone is waiting outside of the pod. They cling with the usual relieved hugs when he first steps out. But when they finally back off and give him space to breathe, Keith’s arms are crossed, and Pidge scowls and says, “You are _never_ allowed to go _anywhere_ on your own ever again. Geez! A thirty million gac bounty?”  
  
“It’s not like I asked for it,” Shiro grumbles, a touch petulant. He blames it on the after effects of the pod. It does weird things to brains.   
  
“Perhaps not,” Allura says, frowning, “but it does certainly complicate things in the future. Thirty million gac is a _substantial_ amount of money—“  
  
“—it’s twenty-five thousand _Mercury Gameflux II’s_ —“ Lance points out helpfully.  
  
“—yes, thank you, Lance,” Allura acknowledges, a touch exasperated, “and certainly it’s enough to cause individuals seeking that reward to take some not insignificant risks to obtain that bounty.”   
  
“They chased the Castle of Lions completely out of planet Lacas’s solar system,” Hunk adds. “I mean, the Castle is _huge,_ and they were still willing to try and steal you back. The Galra ship that arrived to try and take you even chased for a while, until Allura made a wormhole jump. They’re _serious_ about that bounty.”   
  
“I wiped all the databases I could find on that planet,” Pidge says, looking more thoughtful. “Hacked the authorities and the Galra security station, destroyed every instance I could find of it being mentioned. And in the future if we go to Galra-controlled planets we can check the databases beforehand to see if yours is well known.”  
  
“But that won’t stop hunters from recognizing you if they’ve been paying attention,” Keith finishes, frowning. “So you’d still better be careful, and stick with the group in the future.”   
  
“Only required on enemy-controlled planets, of course,” Coran adds, when Shiro frowns at the very implication that he needs babysitters just to make sure he doesn’t get himself captured again. “There are plenty of friendly resisting planets out there that I’m sure would be _quite_ happy to know a thirty-million gac bounty is fighting on their side. The Galra don’t hand out big sums like that easily! They must have decided you’d earned it.”  
  
“Yeah,” Shiro says slowly, staring at the floor. They _had_ thought he’d earned it, based on the way the hunters had all spoken of him. Blood thirsty, psychopath, war criminal, murderer…  
  
“Shiro?” Hunk asks, frowning. “Something wrong?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Shiro admits. No one says anything, giving him time to collect his thoughts, and he finally shrugs uncomfortably. “It’s just…some of those hunters…they really did seem to think I’d earned it. A few of them saw me in the arena, I guess. Or heard of things I’d done. Things I can’t really remember myself. Part of me wants to know, but the other part…I don’t know if those are answers I want.”   
  
Hunk and Lance wince a little, and the others don’t look particularly happy. They’d known about the bounty; maybe they’d heard some of the rumors, too. Shiro finds he doesn’t really like the thought of them knowing even a portion of what the hunters did. He doesn’t want them knowing some of the things he’s apparently capable of…even if he’s not really sure himself what those things are.   
  
But Pidge shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter what they think they saw,” she says firmly. “They’re wrong. That’s not you.”  
  
“We don’t know that for sure,” Shiro says. “I wouldn’t think so, but I can’t remember for sure. I don’t know what I could have done in the arena. Anything is possible, and there were witnesses…”  
  
“Yeah?” Pidge asks. “Like there were witnesses who definitely saw you violently attacking my brother in a bloodthirsty rage because you wanted to fight so bad?”  
  
Shiro blinks at that.  
  
“Not what happened, right?” Pidge says. Shiro shakes his head in mute agreement. “We know that, but even the prisoners we rescued that were _right there_ couldn’t tell what you were really doing. A guy sitting in the cheap seats at an arena event? What the hell does _he_ know? _We_ know you were good at making things look different than they were. And we know _you_.”  
  
“I’ll take your word over any asshole that _kidnaps_ you for money in the dead of night, any time,” Kieth agrees fiercely. “Who cares what they _thought_ they saw you do?”  
  
They have a point, now that Shiro thinks about it. He hadn’t believed himself capable of attacking Matt when the prisoners had relayed their tale; why should it be any different because the story comes from a bounty hunter? It only _feels_ different because it comes with a thirty million gac price-tag on his head that somehow gives it some illusion of believability. But he’d told the hunters time and time again that the bounty itself was worthless—aren’t the claims attached to it by association also completely worthless?  
  
“We know you _really_ have that bounty because you angered Zarkon and Haggar enough to warrant arrest,” Allura agrees. “Of that, I am certain, even if they cover it with other lies. It is easier to call for the arrest of a bloodthirsty madman than it is for an innocent victim that escaped.”   
  
“It’s actually kind of a compliment when you think about it,” Lance adds brightly. Shiro stares at him, disbelieving, and Lance grins back at him. “The Galra are so scared of you they’re willing to pretend to shell out thirty million gac just to get rid of you. They think you can make enough of a difference in their empire that they don’t want to deal with it. And that was before you even got the Black Lion, right? I mean, c’mon. That’s the ultimate marker of badassery.”   
  
“I…guess you’re right,” Shiro says. It’s a bemusing way to look at it, but certainly better than the alternative. Part of him still wants to know what really happened, but the other part is still pretty sure it doesn’t want to find out, and well…none of them are _wrong_ about the situation, either. “Sorry. I guess I just got confused for a second there.”  
  
“It’s because you’re hungry,” Hunk says. “I mean, you haven’t eaten in forever! Nobody can think clearly on an empty stomach. Let’s get you some breakfast!”  
  
Shiro can’t argue with that. He lets them lead the way towards the dining hall, basking in the warmth of his friends and the safety of the Castle after seven vargas of hell.   
  
So he has a bounty. So what? He’ll just be more careful next time, now that he knows. And if he does get in trouble again, well, he knows they’ll come for him in a heartbeat. 

* * *

  
Six planets and approximately two months later, they come across their next big Galra-controlled central planet. True to her promise, Pidge scans the planet-side databases for bounty info before they land. She laughs when she does, and gives Shiro an amused look.   
  
“They upped your bounty after that last fiasco. Fifty million gac for your head, now.”   
  
Lance’s eyes go as big as saucers. “That’s so many _Mercury Gameflux II’s!”_   
  
“There’s other things in the universe to buy besides that game system,” Keith grouses. To Shiro, he adds, “Maybe you’d better stay on the ship while we negotiate with the contacts. For that much money we know people will take risks for sure—“  
  
“Hold up, hotshot,” Pidge says, smirking. “I think you’re gonna have a problem with that. Actually, I think _all_ of us are.” She taps a few keys on the holoscreen interface, and five holographic wanted posters pop up in midair. The centermost one is familiar; Shiro recognizes his own face staring back at him, although it now has an updated photo with a more recent appearance. The others are Keith, Lance, Hunk and Pidge, each with grainy color-corrected photos that were clearly taken during Shiro’s rescue back on Lacas.  
  
“Twenty million apiece,” Pidge says. “The Galra were not happy we helped Shiro get away.”  
  
“At least they got my good side,” Lance says brightly, surveying his poster with a smirk. Hunk groans.   
  
It _should_ be a catastrophe to have all five of them tagged as wanted criminals. Certainly it will make stealth missions on Galra-unified planets difficult if not impossible. But Shiro can’t help it—he laughs.   
  
“Just a compliment, right?” he asks out loud. Hunk moans anxiously again.  
  
Shiro’s not entirely sure who’s responsible for it, but all five posters end up printed and framed, hanging in the dining hall like exquisite works of art. And really, aren’t they? They’d started out as something awful, dredging up bad memories and making Shiro doubt himself. But they’re really nothing more than proof of just how much of a difference Voltron is making in the universe—enough to make them collectively worth one hundred and thirty million gac (over one hundred and eight thousand _Mercury Gameflux II’s_ ).   
  
And Shiro’s okay with that, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks to Gitwrecked for participating in this fic with me by creating an awesome Shiro Wanted Poster! Check it out in the first chapter, or here at Git's tumblr:  
> https://gitwrecked.tumblr.com/post/167840751260/lance-hands-pidge-a-small-device-that-he-pulls
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone!


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